At Lux Capital we pride ourselves in backing great entrepreneurs working on important and relevant problems. I’ve written before that great entrepreneurs pursue problems they can relate to, and build great companies in those spaces.

Security and safety have become an increasingly important consideration in our daily lives. Against formidable foes, individual and organized, that sadly seek to harm innocent people, technology remains our friend—to identify those people and catch them before they can carry out their nefarious plans.

Today we announce our latest investment in Evolv Technologies ($11.8m Series A) to help keep people safe everywhere. And I am proud to join its Board of Directors and partner again with a longtime friend, serial entrepreneur and industry veteran Mike Ellenbogen.

After achieving success with Reveal Imaging and staying abreast of both real-time threats and the evolution of cutting-edge technologies to address them, Evolv was formed by Mike, based on intellectual property from Duke University and Intellectual Ventures.

Evolv is commercializing breakthrough security & imaging solutions based on technical innovations in the field of metamaterials and compressive sensing/imaging.

This is Lux Capital’s second investment in the metamaterials space (we are also founding investors in Kymeta (joined by Bill Gates and Liberty Global)– utilizing metamaterials for satellite communications) and another investment for us in the exciting theme of computational imaging. We believe tremendous opportunities lie at the intersection of hardware innovation combined with the power of computation and networking.

I have had the pleasure of knowing Mike for the past several years as a friend and a colleague. Mike, and his co-founder Anil Chitkara, represent the kind of focused, thoughtful, and patient entrepreneur teams that I am attracted to. Evolv will seek to provide security and imaging solutions to a range of markets and applications around the world, and to win they will need to execute on multiple fronts: hardware/software product innovation, manufacturing, international marketing and sales, regulatory processes, customer training and support . Their experience in building great teams around them to solve similar problems in the past will come in handy.

Adding to my joy of backing a great team working on an important problem is the strong investment syndicate that came together for Evolv, including General Catalyst, Bill Gates and Osage University Partners. I also look forward to working with my former colleague Joel Cutler on Evolv’s Board. This journey begins…and oh, Evolv’s hiring! Join us.